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I have been flying to and from Manila and Cagayan de Oro every month and I’ve normally enjoyed flying. I’ve tried all the airlines and have concluded that apart from the usual delays and little imperfections, every company seemed satisfactory. That is, until August 1, 2008 when I had the most horrible and unfortunate incident with Cebu Pacific.
My flight was scheduled at 2:50 PM. I was excited because this was the first day that the NAIA terminal 3 had opened so I opted for an early check in. I arrived at 1:00 PM and had a normal, uneventful check in. Shortly after I got my boarding pass, I proceeded to the inner terminal. As I passed through security and x rays, the next sight that I saw was shocking. Instead of the usual airport bustle and people orderly going to their boarding gates, I saw hundreds of confused passengers trying to ask anyone for help. Some were sitting on the floor with their luggage, others just looked lost.
I tried to look for any directional signs to where I was supposed to go. As I looked at my boarding pass to get information, I noticed that the space for the boarding gate was blank! After wandering around for a few minutes, I found a girl in a Cebu Pacific shirt. She directed me to a tiny crowded counter. There, surrounded by hundreds of noisy passengers was one girl who was as confused as we were. She couldn’t give any concrete information about any of the flights!
After 30 minutes of waiting, she asked us to go down to the boarding gates and wait. That was 3:00 PM, past our flight time. We went down and waited for 30 minutes, only to be told that the flight was further delayed and that our new boarding gate was back upstairs.
Carrying our heavy luggage, we went up several flights of stairs and waited for boarding. At 4:30 PM, we finally boarded the plane. After 30 minutes of waiting, the pilot announced that the flight has been cancelled because it was too late to fly and it was impossible to land in CDO airport when its dark!
We went down the plane angry and confused. When we asked the crew what the reason was, they said that the flight couldn’t take off because thirteen passengers were missing! Of course, how would these poor lost passengers know what was going on? The ground crew didn’t have a PA system and the Cebu Pacific people were giving vague information. We also found out that several other flights were cancelled that day due to their incompetence.
We waited in front of the counter while a girl was giving us flimsy excuses and asking us to pick up our luggage. There was no representative from management to at least apologize to us. They said there was none present at the airport. This was highly impossible as I saw Cebu Pacific top officials having a lunch party at the area adjacent to the check in counters! Don’t tell me they didn’t know what was going on!
People were fuming mad. After a while, they told us that there will be a special flight for us at 5 am and that they were going book us in a hotel and that the shuttle bus was waiting outside.
We waited for the bus for 30 minutes. We were about a hundred thirty. Finally two buses (capacity about 40 plus each) and the staff stuffed us in. We felt like sardines during the 30 minute ride.
To add insult to injury, they brought us to a dank, sleazy hotel somewhere in Malate where prostitutes were lurking in the doorway, offering sex and massage to the foreigners who were with us. The passengers included several minors whose parents were shocked at this too. The rooms were musty and the included in the list of items in the bathroom item menu were local and imported condoms! It was disgusting! They put us in a motel! And according to the staff this was their “official hotel”! This airline’s sister companies are Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza!!!! Why didn’t they put us in there? They then offered us a poor meal at around 8:30 in the evening.
They woke us up at 1 AM, put us on the bus at 2 AM, gave us packed food on the bus (half a bangus and rice) but they didn’t give us any water or drink!
We arrived at the terminal at 2:30PM, lacking sleep and very tired. We were shocked to be told that there was no special check in lane and we had to go and check in like the other new passengers. One foreigner, who was a doctor who came for a Charitable medical mission in Mindanao yelled something like this: “ Get me out of the Philippines!” This is horrible! “ Another foreigner, who was a pilot for an airline told us that he has never experienced such incompetence, unprofessionalism and humiliation in his life because of a delayed flight. Not only did Cebu Pacific make their passengers mad, they have shamed our country!
At this point, we got mad and demanded that a special lane be provided for us. The duty manager didn’t come until 30 minutes after and the people in the counters were rude to us. They were not listening and they were turning their backs to us whenever we’d talk to them.
We finally got to check in after we made a big fuss. When they handed us our boarding pass, they told us to go to gate 131. Our boarding time was supposedly 4:30 AM. We waited for thirty minutes, only to be told that we should transfer to gate 134 and that the flight was delayed.
In counter 134, passengers were demanding for the one way ticket travel voucher that was promised to us. They gave it only after an hour and after we asked for it and the counter clerk told us we had to pay travel and fuel taxes! The nerve of management to put us through this and give us something worth nothing! Meanwhile, another flight delay was announced.
At this point, we demanded that the duty manager speak to us. The counter personnel was giving excuses. We asked for names and they could just give us first names and they said they didn’t know the officers’ family names because they were “just newly hired”!
We made our own initiative and proceeded to the check in counter to demand for the duty manager. We finally talked to her and we demanded that she apologize and explain to us passengers why this all happened. We also told her to provide food especially for the children.
On the way back to the terminal, the manager was stopped by passengers from other flights asking for directions. One angry foreigner who missed his Dumaguete flight was so upset! It turns out that we were not the only ones inconvenienced by their incompetence.
When we finally got to gate 134, we told the manager to make the announcements. Another person arrived with a radio. We overheard that there were no available plane for us! They lied to us! They never arranged for a special flight! They were about to announce another flight cancellation when people went wild. The manager had no choice but to request that the plane from Butuan be given to us.
A staff member arrived and they announced that they were going to give us breakfast. They distributed 2 packets of Dewberry cookies and the tiniest mineral water bottle for each passenger! They call that breakfast? After approximately seven hours of waiting deprived of sleep, they couldn’t even offer us a decent meal! There were more that 10 children there and when we asked that they at least given some Jollibee breakfast, the manager said “We’re sorry but we cant do anything. This is all the management allowed to give us.”. How could they do this to us?
Finally, after what seemed like forever, we boarded the plane at around 9:00 AM. When we took off, the passengers applauded. A few minutes after, the flight was completely quiet because all of us were tired. We slept but not soundly enough, being constantly reminded about the nightmare that we had just gone through.
We got to Cagayan de Oro and we were thankful to be safe. However, we all resolved to relate this horrible experience to all our family and friends until it reaches Cebu Pacific management. We also all signed a manifesto/complaint to be submitted to concerned agencies so that this unfortunate incident wouldn’t be duplicated.
To date, we are still hearing of cancelled flights and complaints because of incompetence from Cebu Pacific management and staff. We could understand that no one is perfect but there is no excuse for treating people badly. We were not expecting VIP treatment although some airlines give this to their inconvenienced passengers. What made this all intolerable was that fact that we were not treated as human beings. We especially pity the children who had experienced this ordeal. Their innocence has been marred by an airline’s lack of consideration and disrespect for their customers.
We hope that if this reaches the management, they will do something to rectify this mistake. They just lost more than 70 passengers and they will lose so much more soon.
This is a horrible experience that anyone shouldn’t be able to go through. I hope it doesn’t happen to any of you.
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